29th January 2019“So, what I’ve gathered is the team you selected,” Martin attempted to interject, but Johnson continued unabated, “Has not called in. Neither Jessica Mitchell nor Charlotte Jones are in our ‘care’, and you don’t have the data.”

  “No sir.” Martin eventually muttered, briefly holding the handset against his forehead. Johnson may have been full of hot air, but on this one Martin really had no defence. Certainly Johnson had, off the books, recommended he outsource to this team after informing him that no in-house operatives were avaible. That situation was entirely down to Johnson; although Johnson cimed the ck of operatives came from above.

  But, Martin supposed, the final decision to use these idiots had been his own.

  “So, let’s run through this. You set up surveilnce on Jessica’s ft – which was mysteriously empty when it was raided. That raid was the raid you requested, at the time you suggested, which required me to go to my seniors and use a lot of personal favours to get it authorised,” Johnson’s voice had been steadily getting louder and was now accompanied by staccato beats against what Martin presumed was Johnson’s desk. “It required a multi-organisational team and substantial risk to some of our police employees. And now you call me to say you still have nothing. Does that about cover the extent of your operational report?”

  Martin winced a little at the scorn. “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, should you accidentally stumble upon anything useful at any point, do please update me.” The noise of the handset being forcefully thrown down was enough to make Martin yank his own receiver from his ear. Bloody Johnson. How he’d managed to repeatedly mire him in disaster was beyond Martin’s comprehension, although Johnson’s technique of alternating between micromanaging in the pnning stages and then becoming completely hands-off when things went wrong was beginning to feel like it was intentional sabotage.

  One mistake. One mistake had moved him from being a more or less independent operator to being under Johnson, and since then he’d been tasked with jobs far outside his skillset, and things had gone from bad to worse. This whole situation following the discovery of the hack, and Johnson somehow having control over finding and capturing the hackers, had spiralled downhill rapidly. Now here he was staring down another disaster. He’d be a ughing stock.

  Sipping slowly at his hot water Martin stared pointedly at the telephone, willing it to ring. There had been no call-in st night, no report to expin why neither Jessica Mitchell, nor Charlotte Jones, were occupying the interrogation rooms – and no indication of whether the hired gang had managed to find a copy of the data.

  To be fair, Jessica might well have stored the stolen data in a cloud somewhere. But she’d shown disdain for corporate online storage services. Understandable, given her predilections. The team had, at least, managed to track down some of her data repositories. So far all of what they’d found had been encrypted, unsurprisingly. They still hadn’t broken the encryption or provided any useful insight into what data she might have. Martin gred at the cursor blinking in the empty space for the mission report. It seemed to be quietly mocking him.

  The most frustrating thing was that he couldn’t simply torture Jessica Mitchell. Quick and easy, Martin’s pn. Her partner worked most days, so he’d have nipped in, extracted Jessica, and soon enough he’d have known both what she’d stolen and where it went. A little bit of torture got the job done; no mess, no fuss. Well, maybe a little mess. Martin’s brief smile rapidly faded. For a reason that remained opaque he’d ended up either limited to monitoring her activity or maniputing her contacts. Something that had been, at the very least, difficult, and often left him perplexed and running to catch up with inadequate intelligence.

  Finally the phone rang. An external call from a traceable ndline, obviously. That was just icing on the incompetence cake. Martin wrapped his fingers around his mug, the pain providing a nexus for his anger. He was going to have to answer, and he was pretty certain that these were the idiots that he’d have to take responsibility for hiring.

  “It’s us. Your – uh – team.”

  “Indeed.” Martin took some steadying breaths. Who were these idiots that Johnson had recommended? “Do continue.”

  “So, we got in alright, but someone must’ve been watching ‘cos the police arrived too quick. Charlotte bitch fucked off with some bck haired copper. There was some Paki copper too. ‘e drove. We searched the pce after they’d gone.” He paused, interrupted by a dog’s barking which quickly ended with a yelp and whimpering. “Stupid fucking mutt. Anyway, we didn’t find nuffink.”

  Martin grasped the mug more tightly, letting the burning sensation calm him. When he finally spoke, his voice was clipped and quiet. “To be clear, you located one of the targets, but she escaped with the police, and then you searched the office, and were unable to locate any storage devices.”

  “Like I said, we didn’t find a USB stick or nuffink like it. ‘An the bitch went off wiv the other bitch. The skinny one. Followed the car. Went into the station down on Ravensgate.”

  “The woman who went off with the officers, you’re certain it was Charlotte?”

  “Yeah.” He paused for a moment. Martin felt a sinking feeling as he guessed what was coming. “Well, it was dark. But it looked like ‘er.”

  Martin held back the sigh. If they were right, which he didn't hold out a lot of hope for, it was interesting. Charlotte was Jessica’s partner; most likely she was the person that’d left the ft just prior to the raid. She’d piqued his interest because her early life seemed strangely cking in detail. It felt like a sketch of an individual; all the relevant pieces were there and there didn’t seem anything amiss in the documents they’d pulled, but something felt off. He fgged her quickly as someone needing much more investigation before returning to the call.

  “Did you see the officer’s names?” Martin clung to some st vestiges of hope.

  “Nah. Too far away. Got the pte though. EH67JQU.”

  Martin noted the number. “And the police officers? Bck haired woman and an Asian? Any further details on them.”

  “Like I said, there was the skinny bck ‘aired one, an’ the Paki, ‘e had bck hair too, I think. Shorter though. Bit fat. Any’ow, job’s done.”

  The phone clicked off and Martin slowly repced the receiver. He cheered himself with the thought that he might get approval to kill them before returning to the task at hand. One quick check of the system ter, and he dialled one of Liberty’s bought-off police officers who dispiritingly informed him that no-one matching Charlotte’s description had been brought in st night, nor could he identify the alleged officers in question. Worse, the numberpte was from a vehicle in the workshop for repairs – so presumably they’d got at least one of the letters or numbers wrong. Still, he fgged it for his team to locate, just in case.

  This mission was absolutely the culmination of his superior’s ineptitude, as far as he was concerned. The question of whether Martin would be able to extricate himself from this disaster was not even on the table. It’d become apparent he was taking the fall for it, and trying to bme Johnson would just lead to his report disappearing. Probably followed shortly afterwards by him.

  Fingers resting gently on the keyboard, he considered ways to refashion the narrative into one less personally compromising, but one which nonetheless did not directly implicate Johnson. This tiny group had seemed so innocuous when they’d first noted the hack. An opportunist gaining a little data. He, himself, had been in agreement with the pn that came down from on-high that, once they’d traced who Jess was working for, they’d slip Jess documents they wanted leaked – documents that could implicate people Sovereign Group wanted disposed of in a more public way than Martin’s usual approach.

  Martin corrected himself. His formerly usual approach. Back when he had power to make decisions.

  Back when he was allowed outside the damn building.

  Running his fingers through his thinning brown hair, he started typing.